American boys are “in crisis.” We’ve been told this for years. We fear the downward creep for boys extends to men. It’s a cultural crisis, we believe, that demands a society-wide response.

But what if it just isn’t true?

Quietly, without anywhere near the fanfare that has greeted the claim that boys have become the weaker, worse-off sex, serious researchers have been arguing for years that boys — a lot of boys, at least — are doing just fine. That — as long as they’re white and from educated families, at least — they’re not dropping behind girls. That when push comes to shove, they still outperform and outearn their female counterparts once they enter the labor market. That the real issue — the real “crisis” in America — is one of class (income and education level), not gender.

Now comes a major new report that ought to get some noisy attention. Thomas A. DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann, sociologists at Columbia and Ohio State universities respectively, spent 10 years digging through all the data on boys’ and girls’ academic achievement, trying to figure out what’s true and what’s false in the boy-crisis story. Drawing together all the best research, they found that, indeed, girls now take more advanced college-preparatory classes than boys, and earn higher grades in those classes. They go on to earn more bachelor’s and master’s degrees than men.

Yet they also found that the academic discrepancy isn’t new. Surprisingly enough, girls have been outperforming boys in school for a century — so much so, Buchmann tells me, that when the first U.S. colleges and universities began admitting young women and quickly saw that they were winning the lion’s share of academic honors, some actually reversed their co-educational policies. What has changed, they say, isn’t the relative status of boys (a devaluing of maleness in the classroom) or a feminization of education (that much cursed need to shut up and sit still) or a dearth of men in the teaching profession (boys, it turns out, do equally well with female and male teachers). Instead, they say, there has come to be a real discrepancy in boys’ and girls’ attitudes and effort — backed up by the messages that boys and girls are getting about academic achievement at home.

Girls, it turns out, spend more time studying than boys do and are more likely to say that good grades are very important to them. Boys, on the other hand, particularly if they’re from working-class or low-income backgrounds, often suffer socially if they work hard to get good grades. They’re considered “fags” if they do the things that are associated with higher academic performance — participate in music, art or drama, for example. And while girls are hearing the message loud and clear that their hard work in school will lead to success in college and, later, in the workplace, that lesson just isn’t getting through to boys, particularly boys whose fathers didn’t go to college.

“When you look for differences among boys, rather than just differences between boys and girls, the boys who are achieving well are different. They’re more likely to come from families where a father is involved and the father is highly educated and has a white-collar job. The fathers are so important because they help boys understand that being a man isn’t just about acting tough or showing physical prowess but that academic achievement is something that’s very desirable for men, and they make that connection between doing well in school and doing well in today’s economy,” Buchmann says. “These boys haven’t gotten the message or have gotten the wrong message about what it takes to be successful.”

How to fix this? Ten years of research shows that change won’t come through all-male classrooms or more male teachers or a more boy-centric curriculum, the authors say. We need instead to change our schools so that they consistently promote a culture of high academic achievement — a goal that should be obvious but is clearly lacking in many of our sports-obsessed learning institutions. Schools need to promote that culture consistently and evenly for all students. Set high standards and expect students to reach them — and provide extra support for those who need it.

The idea isn’t, then, to pit boys’ needs against those of girls or view one gender’s success as a zero-sum game that requires the relative failure of the other. “If we just throw our hands up in the air and say this is just a crisis affecting all boys, that just guarantees that we’re not thinking clearly about what we need to do to solve the ‘crisis,’ ” Buchmann says. The solution is rather to realize that a rising tide of educational expectation will raise all boats. And that a dummy culture drags everyone down.

Interesting article. But it felt as if a source of the problem was hit on than left alone and it was addressed with having "better education" rather than the source confronted. Although there have been major changes within the education system since I graduated high school back in 1998, when I was going there seemed to be problems emerging more. Looking at what is happening, and what is going on with young men in American society right now, and asking how their home life was, who were the influences, etc, often times we see that there was the lack of positive male role models. There can also be the lack of positive female role models. Although depending upon the influences on the child as they grow, the choices they make along, they can make changes they need to grow out of the environment. So to have one sweeping change, like a reform in the education system might not solve the problem. People are human, not robots.

I didn't do better in school than the other boys because I was smarter. Socially and emotionally I was an idiot compared to most boys. I made good grades because I did not give a damn about being MACHO or fitting in with the moron culture around me. I cared about getting a good job someday when I grew up, period. Boys would beat a kid up if he made them look bad on a test. The pressure to not outscore the class bully was real. For the boys.

Society as a collective (women too) need to stop rewarding style over substance. Truth is women/girls would rather have a man/boy who lies, who will joke about being stupid, who will commit violence by proxy on behalf of women/girls, etc. See the pattern? When being a mindless brute is no longer cool, boys will aspire to be something else.

Does men falling behind in education represent a problem? It certainly does and it's a very big one with huge socio-economic costs as in modern day societies and economies education is everything. This is an issue that has to be taken really seriously.

Females mature faster than males both physically as well as mentally and this is critical for the survival of the human race. When a womans body is ready to give a new life she also has to be mentally ready to raise it succesfully because the main responsibility for this is hers from a purely biological point of view. The father might be or not be around but she will be there for sure as she's the one giving birth, so nature leaves nothing to chance in that aspect.

This early maturity of females is perhaps the main reason why girls peform better at schools than boys also keeping in mind that the majority of the education is taking place during childhood and teen years when those differences in maturity exist. There might be other factors too but this one I believe is the one making the most difference. Girls even at a very young age are more able than boys to comprehend responsibility, importance and work on long-time goals. This isn't linked to intellect, IQ or cognitive abilities which are pretty much the same for both boys and girls.

Also girls outperforming boys in school is happening all around the world and it is not linked to race, religion, society or educational system.

While I agree with your assessment (or the assessment of the study you cited,) I do believe that there is some bias towards boys. I have encountered it myself while I was in school and this article http://ideas.time.com/2013/02/06/do-teachers-really-discriminate-against-boys/ which cites another study that suggests that there is some bias for teachers to give higher grades to female students because they behave better. While I agree, that it should be a zero-sums game and that we shouldn't pit boys against girls, feminists do it a lot. I don't understand why, if it's girls that are struggling or are disenfranchised it's always because of discrimination and something needs to be done specifically for girls. But if boys are struggling, it's wrong to do anything that helps boys out without also helping girls out.

The liberal press doesn't show the success stories which lie outside their ideological underpinnings - say, for example, a school consisting of 80% disadvantaged minority boys - with a 100% graduation rate, and a 100% college acceptance rate. Where? In Chicago, of all places, murder capitol of the US. There is such a school, but that creates a big problem for liberals.

It's a charter school, with very high academic standards. Urban Prep Academies, in Chicago. Liberals don't want to make the other public schools or their teachers look bad, so there was only ONE article about the school's recent graduation rate - impressive by any community's standards. There were over 2000 new stories about the basketball player who came out as gay.

See the game the media plays? They pretend to care about academic achievement but they focus on the trivial.

Actually the Urban Prep Academies have 3 locations and a rigorous program which wouldn't be tolerated in other public schools. From their website:

Until we break the stranglehold that government and unions have over schools, school which put children and results first, will be a tragic minority. And we know who that hurts the most...minorities. (Doesn't stop minority parents from voting for the very Democrat politicians who so cruelly undermine their childrens' successes in these public school failures. I call them hell zones.)

… and what can we do to fix the problem? Spend money on government programs telling boys they
are important just as they do for girls. We have heard so much about spending money to help girls because they need to be empowered past their inferiority complex. There should be minority programs for
the boys because they are a minority. Give them programs to get them past stereotypes holding them back.

Let’s not forget women get less pay
because they group into stereotypically female job classifications and drive the
salaries down through over supply. This is the main reason for the disparity of
incomes between genders. It is caused by the female gender. If the boys
received as much federal help as the girls do the problems they face would
disappear and what a great place this country would be, just, right and fair.

Having grown up and gone to public school and community high school in a working-class neighborhood, I can't believe that this is somehow new or surprising. I faced heavy social repercussions for doing too well in school. Even back then it was impossible to be popular or even respected if you performed well in academic subjects, and I expect it's only gotten worse with time.

There's also the fact that the distribution of intelligence among males is more platykurtic (that is, more at both the high and low ends). If you look in special ed, you'll see more boys for this reason. You'll also see more boys in gifted classes for this reason.

Having retired from working with kids ages 7 to 17, I put in 30 years into the effort. I say effort because it was never a job completely done. But I saw a shift in the 90's that bothered me. We had never sent a kid home in the facility I helped run. But then came this kid who tore into our staff like a hyena. I checked with or camp doctor who told me this kid arrived with a bottle of RITALIN. I said, really, the drug on Star Trek that was needed to save a planet? No he said that was Rye Tal In, this is rit-a-lin. So I asked what was his problem. He said the mom sent the kid with only a few pills to use in case he went into withdrawal during his drug vacation. Really mom, send your kid to our camp with him on a drug vacation? So we called mom and had her pick him up. That was the start of many calls to moms for them to provide taxi service away from our camp. So as time went on, we offered less traditional activities like camping, hiking, hobo dinners, smores on the trail, and vespers out in the setting sun. Kids evidently can't cook outdoors, cant handle hikes, and are not patient enough to just sit for 15 minutes contemplating the day while the sun sets. So it was replaced with "adventure" games and such. Then I finally went to the camp management and said I had to get out. I was not an "adventure" camp leader and I had put in my time. So I left and it was just three years later that the camp closed for good. Seems like no kids could handle camp anymore. The organization bought a much smaller camp near a state highway that had DSL, WIFI, cable tv, and video games. It was also closer to mom so that boy wouldn't get such a separation complex like they now do even at age 16.

Before men only had to compete against each other. They didn't want girls in the game because it would make them feel emasculated and it would increase the competition.

Now girls are surpassing, boys have a larger pool of people to compete against and a lot of boys have been found out for where they truly fall on the scale.

But instead of now disadvantaging the girls (in an insane see-saw of flip-flop change), now we can see where everyone falls, we can now pursue helping those left behind (BOTH boys and girls) and continue to encourage the achievers (BOTH boys and girls) and not pit everyone against each other.

"In the U.S, the education at K-12 and below is the worst system known to science." - CynicalCyx

What a load of unsubstantiated crap.

Everyone loves to pile on the American education system. How is it then that in spite of a system that is "the worst known to science" this nation is and remains the most prosperous, most inventive, most productive nation in the history of the planet?

How did this nation earn 338 Nobel Prizes, the most of any nation in the world, if we are producing so many inferior students? Who built the most productive economy the world has ever seen, but those public educated students? There are 197,000 + patents that have been granted to U.S. citizens, more than any other country in the world. Where did those folks get an education?

It is so easy to trash American public education, but you have to stop and think that the vast majority of the inventors, thinkers, business people, and job creators in this nation were educated in a public school.

In the U.S, the education at K-12 and below is the worst system known to science. It places emphasis on pointless coursework instead of logical subjects and science. Subjects that kindle interest in boys have been devalued. This discrimination against boys starts from early school and goes all
the way to college. Title IX , which was meant to protect women is now being used to cut down men's sports teams under the guise of a "budget cut". It's obvious that there is no need for such a budget cut, this is yet another round of systematic discrimination against boys and men.

Boys have lost their interest in school, some get drunk on
video games while others rigorously pursue online courses to achieve
their goals. Fortunately
fields in high sciences, engineering and computing are a haven for men and will remain that way. There is also a huge surge of men leaving the country and
setting up businesses overseas with excellent results.

Let's call it what it is: men are not socially allowed to act like women. This has been true for centuries. Until recently it wasn't a huge problem since the roles of women were usually limited to homemaking and childrearing (although the perception that men can't do these things is also damaging to both men and women). College was largely a man's thing. However, in the past few decades it has become de rigeur for a woman to have a college degree. It's almost impossible to be taken seriously as a woman if you DON'T have one. Ergo, since females now occupy the world of academia, it's uncool for males to be intelligent.

56% of college freshmen are women. Men are not getting to college, are less likely to graduate from high school, and are less employable. In the long term this will be a crisis for the entire country. When men don't get jobs, they are much more likely to turn to crime than women.

At least one of the answers is buried right here in the article. By basing the criteria for whether or not there's a "boy crisis" on academic achievement and earnings alone, I think we're missing the mark. There IS a boy crisis in this country, in that boys, as the article points out, are not socially accepted as freely as girls are when they do the things they enjoy doing. If a boy enjoys music and art and drama and wants to pursue those things, in many cases, he'll have to run a social-emotional gauntlet; he may or may not decide that's worth it, and even if he does decide to go ahead with his aspirations, he may suffer greater bullying and emotional abuse from peers than he would have if he'd played sports. So is it any wonder that our boys aren't achieving as highly? They receive multiple messages a day that tell them they can't REALLY choose to be who they would like to be, and if they defy that, they often endure abuse for it. This stands in stark contrast to the princess culture that tells girls every day that they can do ANYTHING. Girls can be firefighters! But boy dancers? HA! Girls can be athletes and wear blue and pants and dig in the dirt and play with trucks! But boys who sing, prefer softer colors, like to play with the dollhouse or nurture their stuffed animals? The boy crisis in this country is a crisis borne of prejudice, homophobia, and gender oppression; it's not about "boys" so much as it's about our antiquated and misguided ideas about sexuality.

Sigh...not many women responding to my offer to discuss giving up some parenting time if needed and when appropriate to allow for our country's sons to experience a more balanced parenting life. So disappointing. So predictable. I hope you women can find men for your daughters. Personally, I am going to find a way to get my son dialed in to the risks involved with being in intimate relationships with a woman in this society, so that he can be more careful then some of my peers and myself. The statistics speak for themselves. I can see a lot of men with dreams of having a close knit family life thinking, the risk is just too great. I can't wait to retire, and go looking for a more inspiring culture then ours to cheer me up on this subject.

ps. This is a learning process. Just like you don't want people running to the thermostat and jerking the thing all the way up because they are a little chilly, or jerking the thing all the way down because they are hot, you don't go jerking the thermostat of educational opportunities to adjust for slight imbalance.

@glennra3 Perhaps the main reason why the U.S. leads the rest of the world is the same reason the New York Yankees have won more championships than any other baseball team.The yankees didn't win with home grown talent. They went out an purchased the best players from other ball teams. All the other teams served as a farm club for the Yankees. In like manner the superior educational systems of other nations loose their susperior brains they develop to the U.S.Its imigrants that give America the advantage That why even though the U.S. has a 32 ranked educational system among the industrialized nations yet leaves the nations with susperior educational system in the dust. This is why we don't fix our system.Why should we as long as we continue to attract the best educated brains from all over the world. It amazes me that countries don't do more to keep their home grown talent at home instead of educating brains for America who then brags about being the greatest nation of the world this is why America treats foreigners better than Native Americans.America was built by promoting foreigners over Native Americans.

I wouldn't say it's the worst. There are plenty of Third World countries worse.

The big problems with American education are:

*Pseudohistory and pseudoscience. Creationists, or "intelligent design", or "sudden emergence", or "designerdammit, think of another euphemism", is the most obvious example, but the Lost Cause is still a major strain of American history textbooks. Americans also don't learn about the Armenian Genocide when talking about World War I. That's just two examples I can think of.*Not enough money. Science classes need money to replicate experiments, and computer classes need money (albeit more of a one-time investment) for computers and compilers. In addition to being more interesting than just rote memorization, these things separate STEM classes from the rest of school. Given the current Congress, currently debating the virtues Lysenkoism, I doubt this will happen.

Did you just really use Nobel winners in your example? Nobel winners who were educated decades ago in a better, more educationally disciplined time?

Did you really just claim 197,000+ as an astounding number without considering "per capita" and that the USPTO alone issues 150,000 patents world wide... per year?

You remind me of an ENGLISH teacher on a message board once who said, "I had swum..." sounded weird and since no one she knows speaks like that, she thought it was useless to teach it to her class. Dopey teachers can just decide to dumb-down a whole generation of students because they are too dumb to conceive how proper English is important to learn as a baseline and to compete in the bigger world about to be entered.

Reduced emphasis on science and mathematics? Devaluing subjects that interest boys? That is just flat-out untrue.

In the 1930s and 1940s, because of the economic crisis, schools became custodial and increasingly non-academic. A major purpose of schools was to keep teens out of the adult job market. Previously, high school was seen as a preparation for college. Since so few people went to college it is not surprising that fewer than one-in-five people even graduated from high school in the 1920s and earlier.

With the new influx of teens into public schools in the '30s and '40s academics were watered down to accommodate students who had neither the interest, nor the financial means, to attend college. More undemanding, nonacademic courses were offered and standards for graduation were lowered.

Since then America has struggled to define the mission of its public schools. Is it to prepare people for college? Only about 22% of people in the nation have a college degree, so that would seem to leave out the vast majority of our citizens. Is it to prepare people for work? That way leads to more vocational classes and what many people would deem less rigorous academics.

Today, nearly every state in the Union requires a minimum of four years of mathematics and three years of science to graduate. This is in addition to four years of English, three years of social studies, and two years of foreign language (subjects I gather you feel are "pointless"). Today 88% of Americans have a high school degree. Compare that to the good old days of the 1950s when only half the nation's population finished high school.

School is more academically challenging today than in the past and more America's graduate than in the past. Is the system perfect? No, but then neither is America. People expect the public school system to solve all of the nation's problems, but willfully ignore that many of those problems are beyond the ability of schools to address.

What you write is politically correct, but factually unrelated to the reality of the vast majority of boys in public schools.

For the small percentage of boys inclined toward dancing, singing, or playing with dollhouses there is, no doubt barriers of homophobia and "gender oppression."

However, that is not the world of the vast majority of heterosexual boys (other than the playing with dolls - a problem toy manufacturers solved by calling them "action figures").

It is my experience boys are constantly bombarded with the message that they should never grow up. American business has a vested interest in keeping boys immature, simply because boys (and men who remain boys) play with more toys. Stay a boy and play with toys has proven to be a successful business model, just as getting girls to "grow up" and become women at an ever increasingly young age is a way to make money off of the female sex. Women spend their money on make-up, clothing, and the accessories of female adulthood and the sooner girls enter into that economy, the larger the market becomes for those related businesses.

Boys take longer than girls to mature anyway and we do them no service by denying them the structure, motivation, and high expectations required to become men.

I don't understand, if you raised him well enough to care about his future/education then he should do just fine choosing a mate who meets his needs to build a stable family. He'll have to pick according to his own taste, I don't think educating him or instilling fear about women is something he needs. We're not ALL the same. Some are private in their style of raising for instance, some are not and are frivolous. I guess the same can be said for males. Hence why there are so many fatherless children, no?

Problem is, EVERY society has its normative expectations and restrictions, including those associated with hollow, one-dimensional gender roles and gender cultures.

We need to define a new masculinity which is less emotionally confining and mysogenistic; most males are taught from day one that all things feminine or not overtly masculine are morally revolting and an indication of personal inferiority, incompetance, untrustworthiness, and disrespectability.

The ideological/cultural Right is all wrong though, when it attempts to blame women for divorce. The problem is as I stated above: traditionally-masculine-sexist gender culture taught and modeled for boys from infancy onwards is the true culprit.

I like who I am very much - but - I spent 8years in the Navy to go afford college- and even with the GI Bill, I still had to sweat my way through, working all night, studying all day just to be able to afford the Ramen I was living on.. If I were black, or female or Native American or whatever, I could've gone for free. There is no "United White Boy College Fund".

Americans have been bemoaning the state of education since the 1950s, when it was believed our failing schools put us at peril during the Cold War. In 1955 Rudolf Flesch started what has become a generational tradition of educational hand-wringing when he wrote, Why Johnny Can't Read.

It is a common bias to think that things were so much better in the past. They were not.

I taught at a school that held a student-parent swap day each year. The students were excused from school for one day if mom or dad (or both) took their place and went through the class schedule. At the end of the day parents gathered in the library for refreshments and a debriefing.

The most common comment, by far, every year was, "when did school get so difficult?" Most parents were under the misconception, as you are, that school has been dumbed down over the years. It is quite the opposite.

I doubt you could successfully complete the work my students do on a daily basis.

The core problem is that it is by definition uncool for boys to do well at academic subjects, and by definition cool to do well in sports and to be violent. This isn't maturity, it's gender stereotyping.

@JackieRice@happyfather I disagree with your last statement, but thanks anyway for being tactful. I think many father's would like to be more involved as parents, but they start out behind when separating from the other parent, and have a tough time gaining more custody/parenting time. There isn't the support for single fathers which I wish there was either. Think about it, the program WIC, for Women, Infant, and Children food assistance program. Is there a similar program for Fathers? I don't think there should be. There should be one program for both!

@GregWoolhouse, Being female doesn't get you a free ride to college. I've got a pile of student loan debt just like every other college graduate I know. Yes, I qualified for Pell grants-because my dad has been disabled and unable to work since I was an infant, leaving my mom to try to make ends meet on minimum wage (she didn't get to go to college, because she had a disabled husband and two small children to provide for), plus the SSI disability benefits my dad received. A total of less than $2,000 a month, to support four people. I've worked full time, often multiple jobs, to make ends meet and put myself through school. At one point, when I was out of work, I went to our local welfare office to ask to be placed in their job search program. I didn't want food stamps, or Medicaid, or any other financial assistance-I wanted help finding a job. I was informed that, because I was a college student, I didn't qualify for any assistance whatsoever unless I was working 30 hours or more at minimum wage or higher. I was also told that, if I had children or was pregnant, I would qualify for all of the assistance they could give me. So because I was in college and trying to find work, instead of having kids that I couldn't support, they wouldn't help me find a job. College in this country is a racket, plain and simple. You're promised help, funding, and that it will improve your chances at a good job and a better life. Instead, you get student loans that you spend the next decade paying back, and anything less than a Master's degree isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

@GregWoolhouseThere is no "United White Boy College Fund". yes there is, it is called been white and all the privileges which comes with that !

As a white person, I realized you had been taught about racism as something
that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of
its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts you at an advantage.

White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special
provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.

Maturity is when a person takes responsibility for their own actions and accepts the mantle of adulthood. It is an understanding that we are not the center of the universe and all things do not arrange themselves simply for our benefit. It is the ability to delay immediate gratification for longer term goals and an understanding that we have responsibilities to others.

AshL - try the following experiment. Get a piece of paper. Fold it in half. Write "Women-only Scholarships" on one side. Write "Men-only scholarships" on the other. Google it. Start writing. The "women -only" side will fill right up...to the tune of about 2000 scholarships and fellowships. Now look at the "men only" side. It's got ONE entry...and that was put in place as a political stunt and is only $500. So, while being female doesn't guarantee one a free ride, its a helluva lot free-ridier than being male.

And yeah, college is a scam. What was your first clue? The average plumber makes $50K more than the average college grad. Save the money, and send your kids to trade school. They'll earn more, and end up being less full of s.hit.

Um, Asians more or less are caucasian! Yes, they're Asian, but if you mean Americanized or rich Asians, yes they are doing WELL! Anyone who can afford college these days are doing well, everyone else, it's harder than it's EVER been! You can't even AFFORD school or get EXACTLY the degree you want ... and they say America is land of opportunity, ugh, not so for a while now.

Blah, blah. When Asians outperform whites, it's because they actually are smarter, harder-working and better behaved. When whites outperform any other group, it's because of "white privilege". What a load of steamy hypocrisy. Regurgitating a pile of unfalsifiable assertions and acting as if they are facts is the earmark of a RELIGION, not an objective thought. Your whole social "science" indoctrination has no more merit than any other unsubstansiated, faith-based belief system.

Majority? Who cares? Homosexuals are only 4% of the population, and look at all the damage they managed to do! Besides, immigration rates are way down (some are even suggesting the US LOST population due to immigration over the last 5 years). Know what the fastest growing group in the US is? With a healthy 3.2 fertility rate? It's (drumroll please) MORMONS! Utah has the highest birthrate in the nation. Assuming 2011 birth and immigration rates continue, Mormons will be a majority in the US by 2100! Now, I'm sure 2011's rate's won't continue, which is sort of the point. Don't count your demographic chickens before they hatch. Though not a Mormon, I myself have fathered 4 children.

@GregWoolhouse you are comparing apples to oranges when it comes to Asians ! First of all most asians who come to america come from professional middle class background and ones in america they are least discriminated against and more accepted by the white majority (it seems white preserve a special hatred and supremacist attitude toward black people) ! This is by no mean to take away from Asians achievement but to disprove your false comparisment !

I went to Cornell. I know all about Noel Ignatiev and his made-up "science" of "whiteness studies". I was force-fed this dogma while slogging through my social "science" requirement.

This theory is the biggest steaming diaper-load ever inflicted on the American academic tradition. It primarily serves as an excuse for left-wing policies' inability to ameliorate social patholigies among certain groups (when in fact, it was these very programs causing the problem).

One doesn't have to look hard to falsify it. Asians. Asians outperform whites academically, as earners, at avoiding addiction and crime. So, if one postulates "white privilege", one must admit that it is trumped by "yellow privilege". Your "weightless knapsack" can be found in the same garage as Carl Sagan's invisible dragon.